THE SOUTHERN ECONOMY AND THE SLAVE SYSTEM

 Cotton belt formed when farmers switched from less profitable crops to cotton  Stretched from South Carolina to Texas  1791: US produced 2 million lbs/year of cotton  1860: 1,650 million lbs/year of cotton

 Crop prices fell after the Revolution, so did the demand for slaves  Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin reenergized southern agriculture  Impact: Slavery had been on the decline, but once again increased

 Easy to grow  Easy to transport  Did not spoil easily  Stronger types of cotton produced by crossbreeding …This is why cotton became King

 Use of scientific methods to improve crop production  Problem: cotton pulled so many nutrients from the soil, the soil became useless for years  Solution: crop rotation, more research to understand soil chemistry

 Cotton sent to ports via rivers  Major port cities: Charleston, Savanna, New Orleans  Sold cotton to Great Britain and other foreign countries- Great Britain needed cotton for their booming textile industry

 Planter: large scale farmer with more than 20 slaves- there were very few planters  Held political and economic power despite small numbers  Yeomen: owned small farms, some held a few slaves, worked in the field

 Majority worked in fields sunup to sundown  Some worked as butlers, cooks or nurses in the home  Treated better, but worked longer hours  Some were skilled laborers- Blacksmiths, carpenters

 Poor clothing  Shoddy shelter  Not allowed to be educated. Why?  Punishment: whipped, put in the stocks, hanged, detained, put in different devices

 Maintaining a sense of culture  Religion- spirituals were songs sung to express religions beliefs  Telling folktales- stories with a moral, taught slaves how to survive under their conditions

 Passive resistance: breaking tools, working slowly, stealing, carelessness  Active resistance: suicide, running away, revolts  Nat Turner’s Rebellion: slaves in VA rose up in 1831 and killed 60 whites. Turner was arrested and executed